Martin Roscoe & Liza Ferschtman

Saturday, March 18 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Liza Ferschtman is well known on the Continent as a concerto soloist and chamber musician. As a soloist she has played with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and many other orchestras in Europe, and as a chamber musician, she has played the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas in the Concertgebouw. We also welcome back the acclaimed pianist, Martin Roscoe, famed as a concerto soloist who played a memorable piano duo with Peter Donohoe at Rhosygilwen in 2015

PROGRAMME

PROKOFIEV: March from ‘The Love of the Three Oranges’

TCHAIKOVSKY: March from ‘The Nutcracker’

KORNGOLD: Dogberry and Verges, March of the Watch

KREISLER: March Miniature Viennoise

BEETHOVEN: Violin Sonata no.7 in C minor, op.30 no.2

Interval

BRITTEN: Suite for Violin and Piano op.6

STRAUSS, RICHARD: Violin Sonata in e flat major, op.18

See Liza playing Bach Partita in D Minor

REVIEW OF LIZA FERSCHTMAN’S last CD

EN 5 * Amati Magazine BBBB CD

You’d be forgiven for thinking there was more than one violinist playing on this hugely accomplished new all-solo-violin disc from Dutch player Liza Ferschtman. She finds sounds and interpretative insights so contrasting across her four startlingly diverse pieces that you’d swear she wasn’t alone.
What unites her performances, though, is utter conviction – that, and an arrestingly fresh, spontaneous approach to the music that makes it feel newly minted. In her booklet introduction, Ferschtman describes her recital as ‘a battle’ – between her and the performing demands of the music, and between her listeners and the contrasting demands of taking on and assimilating the admittedly challenging repertoire. Yes, it’s not always an easy listen, but Ferschtman’s incisive performances are never less than compelling.
She begins with an account of Biber’s ‘Guardian Angel’ Passacaglia from the Mystery Sonatas that’s disarmingly direct, and beautifully eloquent in its raw, vibrato-less playing – and she manages to find an endearing eloquence in the seemingly endless repetitions of the music’s falling four-note motif. She attacks the Bartók Solo Sonata with a shattering intensity, though, with a fulsome, vibrato-laden sound and towering multi-stopped chords. It’s a high-voltage account, crackling with energy, yet she’s fully in control, finding beautifully nuanced light and shade even within the soaring passions, and delineating the Fuga’s intertwining lines expertly.
There’s almost no time to admire her immaculate technique in a blistering account of the Berio Sequenza VIII, nor to admire the pinpoint precision of her flurries of notes, so overawing is the sheer power of her performance. The dances in her closing Bach Second Partita, though, trip wittily and stylishly (although the dotted rhythms in her sprightly, somewhat sinister Courante are clipped to within an inch of their lives), but there’s something about her assertive performance that dares you to turn your attention elsewhere. Hers might not be the most sumptuously beautiful performance of the famous D minor Chaconne, but she has a superb vision of the piece’s growing tensions and plays with such freedom that it’s as if she were making up the variations up on the spot.
It’s a remarkable disc, profound in its insights and searing in its sincerity.